Pledge manager surveys close June 11th (and other announcements)
almost 3 years ago – Thu, May 27, 2021 at 05:20:55 PM

Howdy backers,

Over 70% of you have filled out your surveys already. Thank you!

For everyone else, you've still got time. 

But we do have to make several announcements:

Pledge manager surveys and late pledges will close June 11th

What does this mean?

It means that: 

1) We won't be accepting new orders after that date,

2) You won't be able to modify your order after that date, and

3) Your credit card will be charged on that date for add ons, taxes, and any applicable shipping.

We have to do this so we can lock down final counts for factory production and shipping.

If you want to buy extra sets or Extra Engine Packs after that date, you'll need to wait and buy them from your friendly local game store or from us directly when our web store goes live later this year.

You'll able to change your shipping address if you move. We won't lock down shipping addresses until all the train sets are about to be put on container ships.

No local pickup option

We floated the idea of local pickup for backers in the Houston, Texas area. That was before we saw how few backers actually turned out to be in the Houston area. The math is now such that it's not cost effective to mail a separate shipment of sets direct to Houston. Accordingly, we will not be offering local pickup as an option.

If you want to change your pledge level, please email [email protected]

Unfortunately, there's no way to change your pledge level in the pledge manager survey. If you'd like to change your pledge level from Passenger to Conductor or vice versa, please email us directly at [email protected] and we'll make the change on our end.

----

That's all for now. We'll start again with the dumb animated gifs when things have settled down.

The Little Plastic Train Company

Be on the lookout for your pledge manager surveys!
almost 3 years ago – Sun, May 23, 2021 at 12:28:43 AM

Pledge manager surveys are coming!

You'll soon receive an email from us with a link to your BackerKit pledge manager survey.

It’s important to respond to your survey promptly because we need this information to fulfill your rewards.

Seriously. Kickstarter doesn't tell us where you live. This is the only way we can get your address so we can ship your train sets to you!

When you click the link to the pledge manager survey, your web browser will open up a page that looks like this.

Select your country and then click the "Get Started!" button.

Backers at the Passenger level will be asked what Deluxe Board Game Train Set they'd like to order.

Everyone else will be immediately directed to the "add on" page where you can add whatever items you'd like to your pledge. It will look like this.

Your cart will automatically have whatever items you've already pledged for. If you pledged more than your base pledge level, you'll have store credit equal to that amount. Shipping and any applicable taxes will be automatically calculated as you add on items.

Once you've selected what you want, you'll be asked to fill in your address and confirm your order. 

Then you're done!

Can I change my order after I fill out the survey?

Yes!

After you respond to the pledge manager survey, you can go back later and change your responses at any time before we close the surveys and get our final product counts. Your card won't be charged until we close the surveys.

You can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or by requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://deluxetrainsets.backerkit.com/

If you used your Facebook credentials to log in to your Kickstarter account, the BackerKit survey is sent to the email address you use for your Facebook account. If you have another email address that you prefer to use, please contact us via https://deluxetrainsets.backerkit.com/faq

Don't delay filling out your survey!

We repeat. Please fill out your survey promptly. To deliver your train sets by November, we need to put in our order with the factory soon, so pledge manager surveys will only be open for a few weeks.

We'll send out another email before we close surveys, but trust us, you don't want to wait until the last minute on this. :)

If you're a backer but ordered items from the late pledge store, please email us at [email protected] so we can cancel your late pledge

Sorry y'all, but the late pledge / preorder store is only supposed to be for people who missed the campaign.

If you ordered additional items from the late pledge / preorder store, you're now in our system twice. You'll be shipped two separate orders, which isn't great if you're trying to save on shipping.

If you did this, please email us at [email protected] so we can cancel your late pledge / preorder. Then you can add on whatever you'd like in the pledge manager survey.

----

That's all for now everyone.

The Little Plastic Train Company

P.S. Oh man, we're going to have to eat a gross sandwich next, aren't we?

Big update (with news on pledge manager surveys)
almost 3 years ago – Tue, May 18, 2021 at 01:00:39 AM

Howdy backers,

This is a big update to let y'all know what's been going on since our campaign ended.

No silly gifs this time. Just news.

We've received the funds from Kickstarter

We got everyone's pledge money from Kickstarter on Friday. This was the big holdup preventing us from moving forward.

It turns out that you can't get people to make things or ship things unless you pay them first (no matter how nicely you ask) and now we have the money to do that. So yay! Thanks, y'all!

Pledge manager surveys are almost ready

Pledge manager surveys should start going out later this week. These are what y'all will use confirm your addresses, add on any items, and pay for shipping.

You may be wondering--why has it taken so long to send these out?

Well, because shipping stuff around the world is complicated. 

We've had to confirm customs and tax stuff, finalize shipping costs, and manually enter in shipping tables so that if someone in Azerbaijan wanted to order 35 Conductor pledges and 14 Extra Engines Packs the pledge manager would know how much to charge them for shipping. 

We've also had to test various permutations of different orders to make sure that nothing goes wrong when we send out the surveys--like backers in Guam getting free shipping.

On the positive side, we no longer have nightmares. 

On the negative side, we now dream only about spreadsheets.

Late pledges are open!

We've opened the campaign up to late pledges! 

If you know someone who missed the campaign, you can send them this link to our pre-order website:

https://deluxetrainsets.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

We've been working with our factory to start the production process

We've been working with our factory finalizing everything so it can start making the molds for the trains. We anticipate that it will take about a month to make the molds once we put our order in.

After that, the factory will mail us production samples. We'll check them and request changes if we're unhappy with anything. Once we're satisfied, we'll post some pictures for y'all to see and give the green light for the factory to start production.

Once that happens, we estimate it will take about two months to make all the train sets.

Then we'll put everything on containers and ship them around the world. 

Unfortunately, this is the part of the timeline we have the least control over. With the pandemic having messed up supply chains around we world, we'll be at the mercy of the global freight shipping network. Nonetheless, we still anticipate being able to deliver everyone's train sets come November.

Small shipping cost increase for some backers

We did our best to estimate shipping during the campaign and, for the vast majority of backers, we were spot on. However, shipping costs to some parts of the world have risen, so we've had to increase shipping for a small portion of our backers.

Except for Taiwan, all of these increases are no more than $1. We're telling you now so that you're not surprised when you check out in the pledge manager.

Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands - Conductor pledge shipping is now $16 (from $15)

Australia and New Zealand - Passenger pledge shipping is now $14 (from $13) and Conductor pledge shipping is now $19 (from $18).

Taiwan - Conductor pledge shipping is now $19 (from $13)

The good news is that these are the final shipping costs. If there are any cost increases by the time your pledge actually ships, we'll absorb those costs.

If you want more train sets, it's best to add them when you get your pledge manager survey

Since we started this campaign, prices for ABS plastic have almost doubled. And tin prices have increased nearly 20%.

Don't worry. We've hedged against these raw materials price increases.

We're not changing anything about the trains (like using cheaper plastic) or the tins (like buying flimsier tins).

We want our train sets to be as high quality as possible for the price point. The fact of the matter is that it's just going to cost more to make your train sets and we're absorbing those price increases.

This doesn't impact the financial health of the company. We're doing fine!

We mention this only because we anticipate that prices for ABS plastic and tins will remain higher for the foreseeable future.

And this means that we're probably not going to be able to offer these sets at prices this low in future campaigns.

Just an FYI if you've been on the fence about ordering additional sets.

Where's my spam, peanut butter, and jelly sandwich content?

It's going to happen, but it's too important to be tacked on to a large update like this. Such an event deserves its own update. And we're waiting our life insurance policy increase to go through.

That's it for now, everyone. We'll send out another update right before pledge manager surveys start going out.

The Little Plastic Train Company

Thank you! Deluxe Board Game Train Sets are going to get made!
almost 3 years ago – Fri, Apr 30, 2021 at 11:43:23 PM

Woo-hoo! Thank you!

Y'all did it!

You beautiful people clicked a button on a website to give some strangers some money so that they could make some beautiful miniature trains for you.

Bipedalism, language, the wheel, nation states, electricity, bell bottomed jeans, microwave food, computers, fidget spinners ...all of it has led up to this moment. You have completed the task of human civilization--Deluxe Board Game Train Sets! We're at the top of the tech tree now, baby!

You should feel proud.

Now it's time for the follow-through.

We will be hard at work making the artifacts that aliens will one day find and cause to say to themselves: "Yeah, this civilization did alright. B+"

But before that, we're going to relax for a bit and get some sleep. It's been a long month.

So what happens next?

After we wake up in a day or two, a few things will happen.

First, we wait for the money

First, Kickstarter needs to send us the money that you've pledged (after they take their cut, of course). This takes about two weeks. It's during this period that Kickstarter will hound you if you've messed up your credit card information or address. So please fix that soon. If you don't, we won't get your pledge money. And if we don't get your pledge money (dated Seinfeld reference incoming)...

So please don't drag your feet updating your credit card info.

Second, we send out pledge manager surveys and charge you for any additional items you buy, shipping, and taxes (if any)

After we get the money from Kickstarter, we need to get your addresses so we know we know where to ship your train sets and how much to charge for any applicable taxes and shipping. 

We'll send out an email with a link to the BackerKit pledge manager survey to get this information. This is the "pledge manager" you've heard so much about. You'll be able to use the pledge manager to add on any items you like, including Extra Engines Packs!

It'll look like an online store. Just add any additional items you want and check out. Your credit card will only be charged for the items that you add, along with any applicable shipping and taxes for your add on items and original pledge. It's pretty simple and intuitive.

Items that you've already pledged for should appear automatically in your cart. You'll be credited for the amount Kickstarter has already charged your card. For example, if you've pledged at the Conductor level, you'll have one complete set in your cart with a credit for $69, so your balance will be $0. It'll look something like this.

If you didn't want to order anything else, you'd just fill out your address and check out.

If you've pledged any additional amount (e.g. you've already pledged an extra $12 for an Extra Engines Pack or an extra $69 for an additional Conductor pledge), those additional amounts will appear as pledge manager credit. In that case, you'll need to manually add whatever other items you pledged for and check out.

If you've pledged at the Passenger level, we can't guess which individual set you wanted to order, so you'll be credited $19 and will need to manually select which set you'd like before checking out.

We'll probably send out these emails a week or two after we get the funds from Kickstarter. We can't tell you for sure right now because, well, this is our first campaign and the first time we've had to run a pledge manager. We want to take the time to make sure everything is right.

We’ll give you a heads up before we send out the email with the pledge manager survey so that you can watch out for it. 

If you used your Facebook credentials to log in to your Kickstarter account, the BackerKit pledge manager survey will be sent the email address you use for your Facebook account. Just an FYI.

You'll be given the option to create a BackerKit account if this is the first time you've used their pledge manager. But you don't have to create one if you don't want to. We recommend creating one if you're going to back future Kickstarters since it'll make the process quicker and easier in the future.

It's important that you fill out your BackerKit pledge manager survey promptly since we cannot send your train sets without your address and without charging you shipping and any applicable taxes.

Again, we repeat, if you don't fill out your pledge manager survey...

So please don't drag your feet filling out the pledge manager survey when you get it.

Finally, we ship your train sets!

And everyone will be happy.

OK, we know you probably have more questions. 

So without further ado, here's our:

Post campaign FAQ

1) I missed the campaign! Will you be offering late pledges so I can get in on this sweet miniature train action?

Yes! We'll open the campaign up for late pledges in a week or two. Just check back then. If you want to be notified immediately when late pledges open, you can email us at [email protected].

2) Will we be getting regular updates on the production process?

Yes! We'll be posting regular updates as we get samples from our factory and as the trains start getting made. We'll also update you on shipping and fulfillment as we get closer to that. Don't worry, we're going to keep you in the loop!

3) What if I've filled out of the pledge manager but want to order more stuff later?

You'll have the option to add more items in the pledge manager, at least for a while. At some point, we'll send out an update asking everyone to "lock in" their pledge manager orders. Only then will you be prevented from adding more items in the pledge manager.

4) I'm going to be moving three times in the next few months just to mess with you. How are you going to handle that, eh? Ever thought about that, train nerd?

We got you covered. You'll have the option to change your shipping address in the pledge manager until right before we ship everyone's train sets. We'll let everyone know in advance before we lock down shipping addresses. After that, you better have set up mail forwarding or put in Nana's shipping address. She's not going anywhere and we're sure she'll keep your sets nice and safe for you.

5) I can't possibly remember all this information. Will I get reminders in future updates?

You sure will.

6) You promised us you were going to eat a spam, peanut butter, and jelly sandwich and post proof of it. When's that happening?

Soon, my child, soon. First, we must rest to build up our strength for the challenge ahead.

That's all for now. Stay tuned.

The Little Plastic Train Company

Makin' Trains Purty - Part 5 - From Midnight to Sunset
almost 3 years ago – Thu, Apr 29, 2021 at 03:57:06 AM

Howdy folks,

This is the last update in our series on train art. 

If you've actually been reading these, thanks! We've put a moderate amount of effort into them. Like, a solid 6.3 out of 10.

If you've been hitting delete because you don't care, that's cool too! The good news is that this is the last one you'll have to delete, so your index finger will finally get a break.

Now let's get to it.

19th century train ads

When we first looked around to see how railroads advertised themselves in 19th century America, we were surprised to find that there were few trains in these ads. Instead, the railroads mostly talked about where these trains went--the cities you could go and the sights you'd see along the way. Many ads even hawked land that you could buy in settlements along the railroad's route.

When you think about it, the focus of these ads makes sense. Taking a long distance train ride was like getting on an airplane today. The point was to get to another place. What kind of train took you there, or how comfortable it was, was secondary. Just look at today's airline ads. You'll find that most talk about the destinations rather than the planes themselves.

But we wanted tins that highlighted trains! Were there 19th century ads that focused on the trains themselves? Well, yes. But these were ads for locomotive manufacturers, not railroads. 

These ads were pretty simple. A realistic charcoal drawing of a locomotive with a list of the company's officers--we guess because they wanted to see their names in print? Honestly, if someone knows, please tell us in the comments.

You'll notice these locomotives don't have any names attached to them. They're just placeholders to illustrate the kinds of locomotives these companies made. As you can tell, they all looked very, very different from each other.

The Midnight Express tin

So we decided to cheat a bit when making the Midnight Express tin. We imagined it as if it were an ad for a particular fictional train with completely unnecessary shoutouts to its company officers. As tremendously varied as the locomotives were in these historical ads, we decided to make things easier on our artist by asking her to just draw a generic 19th century steam locomotive.

We vetted a few designs before ultimately settling on the one you see on our campaign page.

This first draft looked fantastic but didn't leave enough room for the company officers. Also, its three-quarters perspective didn't have the finely drawn, hyper-realistic look of the ads we were trying to mimic.

This second attempt was 99% of the way there, but we thought the dark shading of the word "Midnight" on the tender took attention away from the train's name and the officers.

Aaaah. Perfect.

(There was also the great "right facing train" or "left facing train" debate that we won't bore you with. Objects were thrown, glass broken, and friendships destroyed forever, but "right facing" eventually won out.)

Modern national park posters

When we thought about where to look for our Sunset artwork, we'd pretty much drunk all we could from the "pretty train ad" well. Look, there are train magazine ads from the 1970s and 1980s, even for freight trains, but they're not exactly the prettiest ads out there. Just do some googling and you'll see what we're talking about.

We've been to quite a few national parks in our time. Visit any national park gift shop and you'll see some great posters. Some are inspired by older 1930s WPA national park posters. Others we can't pin down to a particular style--they just look beautiful. 

So we asked our artist to draw on posters like these for inspiration. The only other request we made was that the Sunset be in a desert setting. You know, because sunsets are intimately connected with Westerns.

The Sunset tin

Like the Midnight Express, the Sunset is a fictional train. We wanted a generic, red cowl unit diesel design that could belong to just about any American railroad and not look out of place anywhere on the tracks today.

As usual, our artist pretty much nailed it on her first try.

Beautiful. But there was only one problem. Where's the sunset?

Aaaah. Perfect.

With less than a day left in our campaign...thank you

As of the time of this writing, with less than a day to go, over 4,760 of you have backed our campaign.

Ain't that something?

This is usually where project creators will thank you for your "support" or your "help." 

We all know those are code words for your money.

So, we'll come out and say it. Thank you for trusting us with your money.

There are so many things that you could have bought with your $19, $69, or more. A nice meal. A board game that exists now. A crushable wool safari hat, apparently. Some really tight-looking sweatpants. Nearly 2,000 live worms. A down payment on a 20 foot tall inflatable tube man Santa Claus.

But instead you decided to buy some awesome plastic trains you won't get to use until later this year.

That takes guts. That's Warren Buffet style long-term investing.

We promise not to let you down.

Thank you. Y'all rock.

The Little Plastic Train Company

P.S. When the campaign ends, we'll send out information about how the pledge manager will work, how you'll be able to purchase add ons, etc. But for now, just bask in the glow of your own awesomeness.